Soldiers of Conscience

I am not sure what the point of this production is all about after watching the clips. In this one, there is an image of Christ being nailed to the cross by a man clearly not Roman, appearing to be more of an ancient Muslim with the type of helmet they used to wear. What was this all about?

The veteran talking in the video was discharged as a "Conscientious Objector" after being an interrogator, face to face with a Muslim and a fast working mind able to penetrate the conscience of the interrogator. This leads to wondering how the military addresses spiritual conflicts with the warriors.

Over the years, there have been many reports of heroic acts by devoted soldiers who happen to be Christians as well. For them, they were able to understand the difference between "Thou Shall Not Kill" and the mentality akin to police officers as defenders of the innocent going after the bad guys committing crimes against them.

Allow the cringe you may feel right now to pass as you think about what police officers are intended to be. Remove from your thoughts for now the few making the news as criminals themselves because the vast majority of them are able to retain the attitude of defender and protector. They stop drivers from endangering others. They stop robbers from taking things from others just as they stop them from killing others in order to do it. They stop the wife beaters and child abusers. They catch the murderers. They also respond to fires, accidents and calm people down after natural disasters. Do they have to kill at times in order to protect and defend? Absolutely and most pull the trigger as a last resort. But even in the police force, it takes all types of people in order to do all that is necessary. They have snipers with the job to take someone out.

As with police officers, the men and women in the military do not enter into it with the thought they can just blow people away. They do so with the thought of defending their country. They do it with the awareness they may very well pay the price with their lives. They would rather capture the enemy than kill them but if it comes down to stopping the enemy they were sent to fight from killing their brothers, they will not hesitate. They are defending their brothers. Politics means nothing to them when they are in combat. Most will say they were serving their buddies above anyone and anything else.

The men and women entering into the military are much like the police officers deciding they will risk their lives for the sake of others. They have it within their core to be able to take lives in order to do it. The real problem comes when they may have it within them to risk their lives to save lives but not within them to take lives in order to save others.

For this group, think of the firefighters. They risk their lives everyday without weapons. It is not within them the thought they may have to kill someone to put out fires or save a life. The men and women in the National Guards are a blend of this type of person. They are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of others but it is not in their core to be able to take lives. When this is asked of them, when they are deployed into combat, it weighs heavier on their souls.

Humans get it into their brains that they can do anything they want to but they don't often consider the consequences of what they want to do. They go into the wrong line of work doing what they were not intended to do, not equipped to do within their soul. Take a look at any group and you will see they were called to do what they do. Ask yourself what makes someone spend so many years becoming a surgeon so they can save lives or what makes someone decide to become a coroner so they can find out what killed a person.

The men and women in the military are just like everyone else trying to find their place in this world. Where do they belong? What were they intended to do? Are they the "firefighter" type or are they the "police" type? If they are in the wrong profession even for the right reasons, they will pay a higher price after. If they are in the right profession, making peace with what is asked of them comes easier because they know what was in their hearts as they did what was required of them. They know God created the Archangel Michael, the Warrior Angel, before He created man because He knew there would always have to be those who protect others. Freewill allows the choice to do good in this world or to do bad. They have chosen to do good.

If they understood this, then the manipulation from a man with the idea killing innocent people intentionally is a good thing. While innocent people are killed in wars, the innocent are not the intended targets. When they become targets, easy kills to maximize the horrific outcomes, then they have become evil. This is the difference between a maniac on a mission to kill and a soldier on a mission to stop them. Their job is not to decide where to go, who to fight or how long they will stay. Their job is to do what was decided for them by the actions and decisions of others.



Truth Commission on Conscience in War (Trailer)

Another Hurt Locker

Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph. D.
Posted: March 8, 2010

When Mark Boal accepted his best original screenplay Academy Award last night for "The Hurt Locker," he dedicated his award to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Best Picture Award winner vividly depicts the particular traumas faced by those troops, and like other war films, it has made little at the box office. Perhaps, however, its six Academy Awards will call greater attention to the fact that we continue to be a nation at war.

Another, different "hurt locker" haunts these wars: it is the veteran hurt locker of hidden casualties. How many of us know that, of the 30,000 suicides every year in the U.S., twenty percent are veterans? and from 2005-2007, the rate among younger vets rose 26 percent. None of these many thousands of deaths is counted among the casualties of our current wars.

Many of us believe that denying freedom of conscience to our service members - particularly for those who subscribe to the Just War tradition - is intolerable. I will be joining over 70 colleagues in New York this month as a Commissioner for the first Truth Commission on Conscience in War. We will receive testimony from recent veterans, chaplains, religious leaders, and academic experts about the questions of conscience facing service members in war. Our unifying concern is to honor and protect moral and religious conscience for those serving in the Armed Forces. Our Commissioner ranks come from just war proponents and pacifists, evangelical and mainline Christians, Muslims and Jews, Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists, and veterans of all military branches.
We will gather for this unprecedented Truth Commission on Sunday, March 21, from 4 to 8 pm in Riverside Church. We welcome and encourage the public to join us. Some of the veterans testifying at the Commission are featured in the video trailer at the Commission website.
For those who cannot be there, a moving Emmy-nominated film, "Soldiers of Conscience,"offers the powerful stories of eight soldiers struggling with moral questions while serving in Iraq; two of the veterans featured in the film are testifying at the March 21st Public Hearing.

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Another Hurt Locker